


breathe into me (and make me real)

by ElasticElla



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 05:37:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20595581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: For all the years Eliot spent trying to get away from the family farm and crafting his new self, it’s an ironic twist that he ends up buying a house in a town with more cows than people.





	breathe into me (and make me real)

**Author's Note:**

> the jump scare fic that flirted too heavily with a dnw, warning tags are spoilers, but they are in the end notes if you need to read them first ^.^

For all the years Eliot spent trying to get away from the family farm and crafting his new self, it’s an ironic twist that he ends up buying a house in a town with more cows than people. There are peach and plum trees scattered all over the yard, and Eliot pretends they weren’t a deciding factor. 

Q lives on the back porch, can’t get enough fresh air since the accident. He stares unblinkingly at the skies for hours, has been obsessed with space since. (Not that he talks about it of course, Q hasn’t talked about anything since that day, and Eliot isn’t going to force him.)

They sit, holding hands as the sun falls, every inch an idyllic scene, and Eliot feels like an old man. Feels like he deserves this not-quite early retirement. There’s still Fillory of course- he convinced Margo to go without him, but she is expecting him one day. But gods, Eliot is so _tired_. His bones ache, and he doesn’t have it in him to fight another war or go on another quest. 

He’s happy- isn’t letting that go again. With age, he’s learned to be greedy. 

(Q smiles at him, has gotten cheekily good at detecting his moods.)

.

Sometimes after sex, Q sprawls out on their bed, face down and come slowly dripping out of him. It’s beyond perverse, a debauched sleeping beauty, and in those moments, Eliot doesn’t know if he wants to admire him more or wake him up and go for another round. 

(It helps that Q sleeps so very still, and Eliot’s discovered a whole new somnophilia kink for himself.)

.

Jam is a sticky disaster. It was supposed to be easy: throw a few berries in a jar, sprinkle in some cinnamon and sugar, wait a few months, and voila, ready for toast, jam. 

Eliot opens the jar to discover white mold on top, tossing the entire thing in the trash and washing his hands vigorously. The scent of sweet rot won’t leave his nose, and Eliot decides they’ll stick with delivery. There’s a bank account with enough money in it to live comfortably for a few centuries, no reason to not indulge every evening with take-out.

(Okay. So maybe they try out a few more cooking projects- pizza and beer and cake and lasagna- none of which go any better. Cooking without magic, ‘authenticity’ he jokes to Q, is _horrible_.)

.

Eliot cups Quentin’s face, long lashes fluttering against his fingertips. 

“I love you,” he says, still hasn’t gotten over the novelty of saying it. That it isn’t too late, that Q is here with him. Before, gods, it still hurts to think of before, of how foolish he’d been, turning away Quentin because he was afraid of how things might be if he wasn’t the only option, of his own feelings. 

Q smiles, turns his face left to kiss his palm. 

(Eliot greedily wants more, wants to hear Q say it. Fucks him harder that night as if he could slam the words past his lips.)

.

The neighbors stay away. Eliot isn’t sure if it’s homophobia, or that the nearest houses are a half-mile away, or that they broke some sacred housewarming tradition when he politely declined a fruit cake that weighed more than a small dog, but the neighbors don’t bother them. 

His younger self could have never envisioned being happy like this, isolated, but his younger self wasn’t very open minded. He wanted power and acceptance and forgiveness, love and the ease money brings. Nothing else was going to cut it, and then he would throw it all back in his family’s face. 

(It turns out only the last two things matter.) 

.

Eliot gets used to the silence. Sometimes weeks will pass without more noise than animalistic grunts, and he never thought he could be so comfortable without words. His least favorite thing about dating his previous boyfriends was the awkward silences that always found a way in. Of saying something, anything, to end the moment and then saying something he didn’t want to say at all. (It feels blasphemous to even compare Q to a boyfriend, he’s so much more than that.)

Being with Quentin is different. There’s no need to bring up the past unless he wants to, no jokes unless they flit across his mind. Declarations of love pass his lips easily enough, sometimes all he says in a day. (The sight of Q after he says such will always be arresting, of how very bright his eyes are, how very wide his smile.)

.

There aren’t any visitors, and Eliot does feel a bit guilty whenever he thinks of Bambi off in another world without him. But she has Fen and Josh and whatever beautiful people had the fortune to catch her eye. 

Margo the Destroyer, she could happily cut him to pieces for thinking she might need him. 

Whatever is going on in this world or the next, it can’t be that bad. No one has dragged him out of their utopia, and the air still sings with magic. (Eliot’s become what he once hated- a content selfish bastard only occupied with his own home.) 

.

-  
.

The grave digging is easy, as if the dirt didn’t want to be there. Q wasn’t looking the best, but he has a plan for that. 

It takes all of Eliot’s magic for reanimation and preservation, and even then, it’s only when they touch that Q can move. Which is fine, really. Magic tricks are nothing compared to having Quentin at his side, and he’s lived as a muggle before, can do it again. 

For that first moment- when Quentin opens his eyes again, smiling huge when he sees Eliot and hugging him- Eliot would trade the very world for. To merely sacrifice his magic instead, that’s a bargain. 

Sitting on the porch with Q, eyes shut against the bright sun and Q’s fingers sliding through his hair, it feels like their cottage in Fillory all over again. Only better, for there is no irritating puzzle, no other people to distract Q. 

Quentin is his, forever.

**Author's Note:**

> title from evanescence's bring me to life (a h a i should feel worse about that)
> 
> them tags: necrophilia (and thus depending on your view of corpses possible noncon), canon main character death (q), dead character a only reanimates when b is touching them, horror, unreliable narrator


End file.
